Fertility With AgeThere has been a lot of press in the last few years about how women seem to be having their first babies a lot later in life. In one extreme case that attracted a lot of headlines in the UK , there was a report of a women of 67 becoming pregnant after specialist fertility treatment abroad. These types of stories obviously attract a lot of attention, also it confirms that our lifestyle and society are changing and women are definitely starting to begin their families a lot later than previous generations. Medically, a woman will experience a reduction in her level of fertility with age. This is just the way that it has always been, in past times it was not unusual for a women in her late teens to be having babies, certainly by her mid twenties it was fair to assume that her baby producing days might be over. It's interesting to think about why this might be. If there is an obvious drop in fertility with age, why are more and more women having babies later in life? Well, I think there are a number of answers to this question. One is that more women are choosing careers over families. Quite rightly, women are now getting the opportunities in the workplace that they deserve, as a result it is fair to say that many are putting off having a family in exchange for career progression. This is why so many women are having their first baby in their later twenties and early thirties, in some cases in the forties and beyond. Another reason is that we're just so much busier than we used to be, not just on the work side but in many other areas as well. Many women complain that they are unable to meet the right person or certainly someone they'd be happy to have a baby with. In the UK , single person dwellings are the fastest growing of social groups, it appears that “Young Britannia” prefer their own company or that of close friends rather than a life partner. Of course, scientifically there have been vast improvements. Clearly, we are all a lot healthier than we used to be in past generations, we have good information about which foods to eat and how to maintain a healthy balanced lifestyle. This affects our fertility with age and slows the ticking of the biological clock to a mere whimper. With a healthy lifestyle comes an increased life expectancy and rightly so we try to cram as much in as possible. If you think about an average young woman and compare her to her grandmother, they inhabit completely different worlds. A young woman for of the 21 st Century is more likely to continue her education until she is twenty, then maybe take a year out before starting a career. For her grandmother, it is very likely that by the time her modern granddaughter started to think about having a baby, she was already responsible for a family of four, how things change. Fertility with age? What an understatement! Read more of our articles on fertility Increasing Your Chances of Fertility |